Trump directed his own defense and received 34 felony convictions

Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, said the ex-president was involved in all decisions about his defense and wanted to be the trial attorney.

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Jesse Watters asked on Fox News how involved Trump was in his own defense.

Blanche replied:

What do you think? Very involved. He’s a smart guy, he knows what he’s doing. He often jokingly told us that he wanted to be a trial lawyer. You want to be the one who actually argued because he’s a smart guy and knows what he’s doing. We made every decision together. There were things he was frustrated about. We wanted to be able to argue the dependence of a lawyer to the judge a few months ago. To some extent he relied on his lawyer and the judge did not allow us to do that. So grateful that he would really force us why can’t we do this or that. It has been an honor for me to spend the last six weeks with him and defend him. Today we achieved a bad result. It’s not over yet, but it was great.

Video:

Todd Blanche says Trump was very involved in the decisions about his defense: “He wanted to be the trial lawyer. You want to be the one who actually argued because he’s a smart guy and he knows what he’s doing. We made every decision together .” ” pic.twitter.com/9Z5Xe2S3DI

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) May 31, 2024

Aaron Blake of The Washington Post noted:
Very interesting comments that invite a lot of reading between the lines.

Yesterday, Andrew McCarthy wrote that Trump’s defense suffered because “Trump insisted that his lawyers subordinate his defense at trial to the political narrative he wanted.”

Although he is very complementary to Trump, it is impossible to escape the feeling that he also created some distance between himself and Trump’s defense. Reports from reporters in the courtroom suggested that Trump was deeply involved in directing his defense.

Trump’s defense explains why it took the jury about nine hours of deliberation to convict him of 34 crimes.

Trump has always claimed that he is smarter than the lawyers, and he proved this by forcing himself to 34 felony convictions.